Said the Observer eBook

“No other man gets half the flattering attention
that is given the condemned; no one else is given
half the chance to make a glorious finish. By
some occult influence his faults are utterly effaced
and every latent talent is developed to a point of
absolute perfection. When this ‘ne plus
ultra’ is reached, a quick curtain is dropped
over his career, and he lives in the memory of countless
thousands as a martyred hero of the most splendid
moral and mental attainments.

“Who would not sacrifice life for such a climax?
Many men have said to Fame and Wisdom, ‘Let
me look upon your face and die’; many have come
to view their Gorgon features and cheerfully paid the
price, and still more have perished miserably on the
way.

“Now, what is the murderer’s sacrifice
compared to these? He is carefully attended,
afforded every luxury, and at last, is whisked away
into eternity, quickly, and, as far as possible, painlessly,
with a grand opera and limelight effect.

“We have learned many things from Mongolia;
gunpowder, the printing press and many other great
discoveries have been traced back to Celestial origin.
Let us, then, adopt her method of dealing with troublesome
subjects. A ‘harikari’ sentence saves
the nation much trouble and expense. A coroner’s
verdict of ‘suicide by request,’ is much
more simple, and just as good as a lengthy criminal
prosecution, besides affording the transgressor a
choice of weapons. He may prefer a strychnine
sandwich to the rope, or an unobtrusive blow-out-the-gas
transition to the electric chair; he may choose to
loiter carelessly in the path of a metropolitan trolley
car; to caress the rear elevation of an army mule,
or insist upon reading a spring poem to an athletic
and busy editor. Many persons are particular upon
these subjects and, if the individual liberty, which
is the watchword of our nation, is to be preserved,
some license should be allowed even a felon under
such conditions.

“If we really wish to decrease and discourage
vice, however, let us go about it in a logical manner
and hold up a terrible example to those premeditating
crime. The prisoner should be visited by none
but religious advisers of every denomination, except
on certain days when free admittance should be granted
to sketch artists, camera fiends, elocutionists and
young authors. All newspaper articles relating
to his case should be carefully suppressed; no reading
matter furnished him except dialect stories, and amateur
photographs, taken by visitors, should be hung upon
the wall. Between times the prisoner might be
employed in washing dishes for a cooking school and
testing the products of pupils. After two months
of unremitting toil, according to this itinerary,
he might be safely liberated, if life remained, and
it is safe to say that his experience, when related
to associates, would have a more deterrent effect
upon the ‘profesh’ than several kinds
of death penalties could hope to produce.”